Building our own house: How much did it actually cost?

That’s the question we asked ourselves over two years ago when we were knee-deep in planning the construction of our new home. We had plenty of experience renovating homes, but this would be our first time building a home from the ground up.

We had a lot to learn.

In the time since, we’ve actually done what we set out to do – move into a home we built ourselves. And do it without incurring any debt. (The majority of the building was done by Ryan and our family and friends. We did hire a few contractors for projects that needed additional expertise or were on a time-crunch.)

This gives our family so much financial freedom for our future. But that doesn’t mean it’s been easy. Or that everything went according to plan. (It didn’t.)

But I’m nothing if not an open book. And I’m back to share what we actually spent building our new home.

When it comes to building a house, the final price can truly be all over the board. You can imagine that every little choice we made had an impact on the bottom line. And as you begin to build a home of your own, the same thing will be true. But I have had lots of questions about how we actually did with our original budget we shared.

Were we able to build the house for $125,000, as we planned?

The short answer: Nope.

The actual cost we paid for our home was just over $157,000. (So if you are doing the math – that’s $32,000 over budget. Or more than 25 percent over budget.)

That’s not pretty – and we could wallow in shame that we went over budget so much.

Or, we could remember that we just built a brand new home for $157,000. Which is far below the cost of an equivalent new home in our area. And it’s actually far below the cost of an equivalent home here PERIOD.

And that doesn’t even take into account the location and the land. So, we could have paid more for a pre-existing home in our area that we didn’t love as much. Which wouldn’t make any sense.

Instead, we’re choosing to celebrate. And we’re also choosing to be open and honest about where we didn’t hit the mark on our budget. We know you’ll be gentle and kind to us.

A big disclaimer: The cost of our home was very specific to us. There are thousands of things that could impact the cost of your home – the city you live in, your style and preferences, and whether you’ll be hiring a builder or doing some or all of the work and planning yourself.

When be bought the property, we ran electrical and dug a well and septic system. These were all part of initial costs while we built the barn and are not included in the house cost.

Because we live in a rural area, we have an exemption that means we aren’t responsible for pulling permits. This is a huge cost and time savings. (Note: we are still responsible for building everything to code.)

The biggest reasons we went over budget

There were a lot of reasons that the final price was higher than we anticipated, but the biggest was that we simply didn’t account for a lot of expenses in that initial budget.

Here are a few of the biggest reasons:

Building materials

Our original budget only included the quoted amount for the framing, millwork and lumber. What did that miss? Everything else – including doors, hardware, tools, interior doors, and extra supplies.

This was a huge miss on our original budget. But while we certainly should have increased this, we never would have imagined that all those hardware trips could add up to the tune of $20,000. Every time we went to the store for framing nails, tarps, or additional lumber, it was adding up big time.

Things we missed in the original budget

There were also a variety of things we didn’t even include in the original budget – and while we allotted $5,000 in the budget for overage, this didn’t come close to covering these oversights. The total overage for these oversights were around $14,000 (yikes!).

These include:

Flooring

Gutters/roof

Equipment rental

Fireplace

Garage door

Because of these overages, we did have to wait to finish some parts of the house – like the front and back porches. By waiting, we could save the money to afford the projects without dipping into our other savings. But every little thing caused our overall budget to go higher.

Where the budget was right on

The good news is that we didn’t go over budget across the board (thank goodness). Many of the line items were very close to the original budget, with a bit of variance over and under.

What we would do if we did it again

It’s true that hindsight is 20-20, and building a house is no exception.

By knowing the things we missed and overlooked, we would have a much more accurate budget to start with if we were to do it again.

We would also have been much more careful about all those little extras – seeing how much those building supplies added up, we should have done more shopping around and buying in bulk to save some money.

But, for now, we can just enjoy the home we’ve built. And since we have no plans to do it again, we hope that our oversights can help you plan better for your own projects.

What’s your biggest question about our home building budget?

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Comments

Thanks for being so open about your experience. I really like how you broke each expense down in so much detail. We haven’t tackled a big reno in a few years, but we have a few on the horizon, and I feel like that will be a very informative activity that will set us up for more projects down the road.

We are in the middle of our own build (just put up the trusses and working on the roof!) and we were surprised but how quickly the little things added up. We have been pretty on budget for most things so far – a little under on the Windows and doors because of a great sale we took advantage of! Definitely a learning process!

That’s wonderful, Veronica! Our biggest place we went under was kitchen (hurray!) so that gave us the flexibility to actually get the appliances we wanted instead of waiting for years to save. But, it’s all give and take.

There were a few things we received along the way and shared on the blog – the biggest item was the unfinished wood floors in our main living space. I’m sure there were other smaller items or things we had hung onto (like lots of paint that we saved up for the project). Those comped expenses are NOT included in the total. But those are a pretty small minority of the total budget. The flooring would have added a few thousand dollars to the total, I believe.

Most of what we shared on the blog was not comped, though. (Which is a bummer. If only …) 🙂

Thank you for being so transparent with your money! It is very helpful.
My question is — does Ryan have any training? or how did he know how to do all the things? Even the basics of where to begin would leave me speechless, I think.
Thanks so much! and well done on a beautiful house for your family!

Ryan does have a basic “handiness” about him, which is helpful. Both of our dads are handy and have taught him a lot. But we are also so lucky to live in a time of YouTube. Ryan does a lot of research, reading and YouTube watching about new projects, which is helpful. That’s basically how he taught himself to plaster.

Thank you so much for posting this. We’re planning to build a house in the next year, and I really don’t know how much each little piece costs. It’s nice to see how much we should allocate to each “piece of the pie.”

This is a great post. May I ask where u live. Everything seems super affordable. That plumbing and paint price sounds amazing. Around here you can buy 2 5gal buckets and some brushes for that which would never be enough for 1,500 sq ft. We hope to sell our home and build by 2020. Land pices are crazy around here now.

I just read all your blog posts on the process of planning, building and moving into your custom built home in ONE sitting and I must say WAY TO GO!
I’m thoroughly impressed and a little intimidated.
My man and I are planning on building in the next couple years on property graciously given to us from my father.
I love all your posts about different stages of the build and all the tedious work you guys went through.
I love everything you guys decided on *especially the bold red front door*.

Also appreciated you posting about the budget is that is something we are working on crunching out before we really get started.

Hello! My husband and I are wanting to purchase land and build our home. We were wondering about how long does it take to build a house of about 1,700-2,000 sq. Footage? Like you, family will be helping.

It took us about 13 months from digging to moving in (there were still projects to finish when we moved in). But it truly depends on a lot of things – weather, timing of contractors, money, and even your ability and speed to complete specific projects. Best of luck!

we just finished building our own house as well. We hired the basement walls and floor poured, but my husband and brother in law dug the hole and put all the rebar in the floor and walls. We hired a builder that would go off of my graph paper drawing and frame the house, get it under roof and put the siding on. Everything else was on us. We planned on $80,000 covering it and it finalized at $87,500. $4,000 of rock being buried in the yard for septic and lateral lines was totally not foreseen at all! We are totally happy with our house. It is similar in size to yours. 1535 total square feet, Cape Cod with unfinished full basement. 3 bed, 2 1/2 bath, covered front porch and two other decks. Congratulations on your accomplishment!

I have some free land from my parents and I know some contractors, electricians, plumbers, concrete workers, etc. from my family and military so I think I can get a good deal on building a home. My dad would be my general contractor for free. My overall budget however is $130K. I’d have to sacrifice things, but I’m okay with that if I have a well-built and fitting home. I’m curious as to what the Geothermal part of your budget means and whether it’s worth it with my small budget. How long did this whole process take start to finish? And do you have any suggestions on what the best times of the year are to get windows/doors on sale and such?